Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Flourishing? | New Testament | 2 Corinthians 8

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

Do you live a life of abundance? What do you do with your abundance? Will you ever be content? In today's episode, Tanya discusses 2 Corinthians 8 and the secret to living a flourishing life. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Corinthians 8

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. We all know the story of Goldilocks. She went to the home of the Three Bears and had quite a challenging day. She tried the porridge and it was either too hot or too cold. She tried to sit in a chair and it was either too high or too low. When she was exhausted from her efforts, she looked for a place to rest and the beds were either too hard or too soft.

When she finally found one that was just right and fell asleep, the three bears, came tromping back from their jaunt in the woods and scared the daylights out of her. She probably broke a leg jumping out of the window. But isn't this also often the metaphor that would best describe our life? We have too much of this, too little of that. Not enough time, too much time. Not enough work. Too much work. It's too overwhelming or not challenging enough. It's hard to keep up with all the people that matter to us, or we're sitting at home lonely scrolling Instagram. When we finally do find a sweet spot, it's too little and too late. We find ourselves whittling in a way worried about what's going to happen next. Satisfaction, contentment,

joy, are they truly attainable? Or are they a myth as much as Goldilocks is? Perhaps it depends on where we're looking for them, how we're trying to find them. Are we looking at our circumstances to deliver? Or is there a deeper answer? Less entwined with the condition of porridge, the chair, the bed, and more entwined with the condition of our hearts. Listen to the encouragement Paul gave in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and how different actually how opposite it sounds than what we might hear marketed to us today it says we want you to know brothers about the grace of god that has been given among the churches in macedonia for in a severe test of affliction their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part see the macedonian churches

are economically struggling yet they have an abundance of joy and their hearts are overflowing with generosity. This doesn't sound like us, does it? If we were going to write a sentence to describe the way we most often live, I think it would sound more like this. Their abundance of stuff and money and time and their extreme poverty of selflessness and humility have overflowed in a wealth of societal breakdowns, isolation, and loneliness.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote to a newly repenture. in church about how to flourish in God's kingdom. The commands and encouragement he gave them weren't meant to oppress them and limit them unless they misused and misunderstood the intent. Rather, it was an invitation to look at the world through the lens of the gospel, the good news that Jesus was their risen Savior. And while not written directly to us, Paul's words are from God for our flourishing also. We aren't meant to wake up, try to find happiness, and go to bed,

realizing it has deluded us and we must try again the following day. We're intended to flourish in our lives with God and with others. Paul says the way to flourishing, a way to a flourishing life is generosity. Speaking still of the Macedonians, he says, for they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own accord, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. So they didn't just give a little, but their generosity exceeded what Paul would even have expected, and they did it because they wanted to be part of something bigger than themselves. The Corinthians were in a state of economic abundance, but Paul says he isn't writing

this as a command for the Corinthians, but he's highlighting how their situation creates an opportunity for them to test the genuineness of their love. So what do you have an abundance? Is it time, money, a skill, relational connections, familial support, work influence? Do you see your abundance is an opportunity to test the genuineness of your love. Paul is making an appeal for love in action, and he points to Jesus as the ultimate example. Verse 8, I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine,

for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. It's not economic poverty Paul has in mind, but the cost to Jesus Christ for his role in redemption. The costs that included rejection, ridicule, persecution, denial, mockery, and suffering. The cost that culminated at the cross. And this is different from the way we calculate cost, where we stop giving, sharing,

meeting with others, and loving, sacrificially when it takes something from us or causes us discomfort. But when we stop doing those things, we miss out on the true blessings. Just as Paul wasn't talking about Jesus' poverty in material terms, we shouldn't understand the riches God makes available to those who put their trust in him in material terms either. It is our rescue from a life of sin and death into a life of security and hope that Jesus Christ attained for us by his poverty. It's a life where abundance doesn't spoil and ruin our hearts, and a lack of supply doesn't render us helpless or hopeless.

It's a life of content. Paul believes the abundance of the Corinthians should spill over to supply for the needs of the Judeans, and if there comes a time when the roles are reversed and the Corinthians are in need, well, the positions should also be reversed, so their needs will be met. This kind of reminds us of the experience of the Exodus community, where the needs of all the Israelites were met by manna, and no one suffered from oversupply or from want. It also points us to a time when Christ will return,

and the world will be supernaturally renewed like the psalmist wrote in Psalm 72-16. May grain abound throughout the land, on the tops of the hills may it sway. May the crops flourish like Lebanon and thrive like the grass of the field. We live in a time that demands that we give authority of ourselves over to no one, but it violates God's glory and our nature to keep our lives and our abundance in our own hands. We were created to need God and one another. We were created to meet the needs of one another. We suffer when we don't follow this.

We've invited a whole new kind of suffering into our lives with words like Self-Love, Self-affirmation, and Self-Care. The solution that Jesus gave us was selflessness. He selflessly went to the cross for us so we can live for someone better than ourselves. He rescued us from living for ourselves to live for him. 2 Corinthians 6 is a chapter on overflowing generosity that comes from knowing they are overwhelmingly loved. Do you know how loved you are?

Does the way you give of your time and your money reflect it? Often when we're short on finances or time, we lose our joy because we worry about them. And when we have an abundance of money or time, we lose our joy because we waste them. When we remember how much Jesus loved us and gave himself for us, we have one thing that remains constant, our joy. If we could just grasp this, that there's never a shortage of love from God toward us, then we would ease a lot of the tension that comes from competing with one another for all of our resources. I've heard a funny little saying that siblings fight and bicker more than anyone else because they're all competing for the same resources. But you see, our resource

never runs out. God's capacity and ability to love us and take care of us will never run out. Life isn't a competition, but a relationship. From him toward us and from us toward others. What do you have an abundance that you could give to foster your relationships today? and what do you need more of that you could accept from others today? I pray that the more we understand how loved we are, the more we can flourish with one another in a kingdom of selfless followers of Jesus Christ. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday

that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.